Legislation designed to overhaul the nation's bankruptcy rules has been a fixture on the congressional agenda since 1997. To date, however, agreement between the House and Senate has failed to materialize in large part because the Senate version of the bankruptcy reform bill contained a controversial abortion-related provision which would have prevented anti-abortion activists from declaring bankruptcy to avoid paying fines and court judgments related to property damage or violence to abortion clinics, patients, and/or doctors who practice the medical procedure. In an effort to revive negotiations between the House and Senate on bankruptcy reform legislation, Republican leaders in the House brought a Senate-passed bankruptcy measure to the floor and substituted the text of the Senate bill with language favored by the Republican leadership. While the Senate bill was narrowly tailored to address one particular aspect of the bankruptcy code-the ability of family farmers to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 12 protections (see House Vote 8)-the House version of the legislation offered a more comprehensive reform of bankruptcy rules. Specifically, the House version of the bankruptcy bill would require debtors who are able to repay either $10,000 or 25% of their debts over five years to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 13 rather than Chapter 7. In contrast to Chapter 7 bankruptcies which discharge an individual's debts, debtors who file for a Chapter 13 bankruptcy are required to reorganize their debts under a court-approved repayment plan. Progressives voted against the bankruptcy reform bill because, in their view, the legislation would undermine the hard-fought rights of consumers to file for bankruptcy under Chapter 7. Progressives also objected to what they characterized as a lack of bankruptcy protections for active and former U.S. military personnel and their families who had suffered financial hardship as a result of their military service. Conservatives voted in support of the bankruptcy reform legislation as a way to curtail what they viewed as excessive fraud and abuse in the bankruptcy system. Increasingly, Conservatives argued, debtors where filing for bankruptcy to expunge their debts even though they had the financial means to repay those debts. On a vote of 265-99, the bankruptcy reform bill was adopted by the House and the measure was sent to the Senate for consideration.